{"id":607,"date":"2023-12-04T03:48:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T03:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/?p=607"},"modified":"2023-12-04T03:48:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T03:48:13","slug":"xena-virtual-season-7-mayan-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/04\/xena-virtual-season-7-mayan-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Xena Virtual Season 7: Mayan Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_9277.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"234\" height=\"219\" src=\"http:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_9277.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-606\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Xena puts the pinch on a referee in a game of Pok Ta pok, over Gabrielle\u2019s objections, as  Mayan players look on.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Between the 2nd &amp; 3rd parts of the Go West Young Warrior trilogy, there was a comedy ep, Mayan Madness, for the #Xena Virtual Season. The title is a play on March Madness, a slang term for the American college basketball playoffs (in March), &amp; since it\u2019s often said that the Mayans invented basketball, we get to see Xena &amp; Gab shoot the hoops in ancient Maya. They must win a lopsided match\u00a0 against them in a game of Pok Ta Pok in order to save the lives of the 2 young Mayan boys seen on the right. In reality, the game was probably more like racquetball, &amp; was played by men, women &amp;\u00a0children, but it was also thought to be used in rituals of human\u00a0 sacrifice, as seen here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My portrayal is anachronistic, as they are wearing modern style jerseys with numbers, both Western Arabic &amp; Mayan, indicated with bars &amp; dots (for numbers, I just used the age of the actors). Here, #Xena is settling a dispute with the referee by putting the pinch\u00a0on him. Despite its comic look, I did a ton of research, &amp; I can\u2019t emphasize enough the potential of depicting Mayan culture in comic book form. If I could do this scene over (&amp; I\u2019m tempted to), I would show more of the game itself, give some sense of its action, &amp; use the actual rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can\u2019t believe it didn\u2019t occur to me to have Xena &amp; Gab passing the ball with their hips, as originally played! This was my last published drawing for the XWPVS, but I did do concept sketches for the finale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between the 2nd &amp; 3rd parts of the Go West Young Warrior trilogy, there was a comedy ep, Mayan Madness, for the #Xena Virtual Season. The title is a play on March Madness, a slang term for the American college basketball playoffs (in March), &amp; since it\u2019s often said that the Mayans invented basketball, we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-virtual-season","category-xena"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}